The New Asian Hemisphere

by Kishore Mahbubani

"For two centuries the Asians - from Tehran to Tokyo, from Mumbai to Shanghai - have been bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought, and power. That era is over. Asia is returning to the center stage it occupied for eighteen centuries before the rise of the West. Asians have absorbed and understood Western best practices in many areas, from free-market economics to the embrace of innovative science and technology, meritocracy, and the rule of law. And they have become innovative in their own way, creating new patterns of cooperation not seen in the West. Their rise is unstoppable - by 2050, three of the world's largest economies will be Asian: China, India, and Japan." "Will the West resist the rise of Asia? This scenario will be disastrous. Asia wants to replicate, not dominate, the West. But the West must gracefully share power with Asia, by giving up its automatic domination of global institutions from the IMF tothe World Bank, fr